Full Duplex

A view from the trenches of Australian telecommunications. As the name implies, it's a two-way conversation and we ask you not to pull any punches ... we won't.

David Braue

As large as the US mainland but with a smaller population than Texas, Australia relies on ICT innovation to maintain its position as a first-world democracy and a role model for the developing Asia-Pacific region. Award-winning journalist David Braue has covered Australia’s IT and telecoms sectors since 1995 – and he’s as quick to draw lessons from their failures as to laud their successes.

Latest Posts

After a few false starts, News Corp's efforts to deepen its engagement with customers are finally paying off – but it has required the accumulation of what data services manager James Hartwright calls "scary" amounts of clickstream data.

Many weeks using the Nokia 1020 as my primary phone revealed it to be both a strong iPhone competitor and an example of why Microsoft has struggled to build a mobile juggernaut. Its superb camera will bring many users, but how does it stack up as a primary phone?

Pragmatism has already forced Malcolm Turnbull to step away from the Coalition's non-interventionist telecoms dogma. But as a coalition of US carriers threatens a freeze on infrastructure if that country's government declares broadband, it's worth considering which approach will deliver the most desirable outcomes.

The government will spend $461,000 to help its last tranche of Australians migrate to digital TV this year, but the 2014 Budget confirms it will still cost around $11m annually to support those who live too far from terrestrial digital TV towers.

Just so we get this straight: when Labor proposes spending $43 billion on an FTTP network it's "reckless spending". When the Coalition spends $41 billion on a hodgepodge it's "money well spent". This, from the government that's putting the 'con' back in 'condescension'.

Over 420,000 more customers will receive fixed-wireless and fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband services after an NBN Co review recommended an additional 1300 wireless towers be built – at an additional cost of $1.7 billion – to prevent latent demand from swamping satellite services to be launched in 2016.

The government has released its official response to the Interim Report of the Senate Select Committee for the NBN – and it's unrepentant about "categorically" rejecting what it calls the committee's "entirely fictitious" assessment of the NBN's progress.

Technical restrictions mean that NBN Co will not be able to offer its pending fibre-to-the-basement (FTTB) product in buildings where TPG Telecom has already installed FTTB services, NBN Co CEO Bill Morrow has confirmed. The alternatives? FTTP to the apartment – or no NBN Co service at all.

NBN Co is becoming a parody of itself as new CEO Bill Morrow strongarms would-be competitors and a multi billion dollar organisation justifies a 180-degree policy turnaround on the back of a single, non-representative speed test.

The cost-benefit analysis is incomplete, Ziggy Switkowski has gone rogue and there's still no clarity around how or even if the government will access Telstra's copper – yet Malcolm Turnbull happily marked NBN Co's fifth birthday with a new Statement of Expectations putting the NBN on a road to nowhere. How will future Australia judge this day?

Readers may have given the ZDNet Great Debate to the 'yawn' vote, but the fact that Office for iPad apps are flying off the shelves suggests that Microsoft has indeed captured the imaginations of increasingly mobile users. Whether it can keep them, is the big question.

Four months after I swore off Office for Mac in favour of Apache OpenOffice, I'm happy to say that the change has stuck. OpenOffice may not have everything Office power users need, but for the other 99 percent it's capable, reliable, and more compatible with Word than even Apple's Pages.